Remembering WDBS

The Campus Radio Station of Duke University (1950-1983)

This page was created by Jeff
Miller, who attended Duke from 1968 to 1970, and hung around the
station quite a lot (too much, in fact, as I should have been attending
classes now and then). I welcome improvements to this page from former
WDBS personnel in the form of reminiscences, pictures, and any other
information you'd like to share. This page was last updated on Jan. 26, 2018.

An amateur radio station using the call letters W4AHY operated from
the Duke campus in the 1930s. In 2009 Peter B. Kingman contributed to
this web site several photos of the station (which can be seen below in
the pictures section). He reports that his father, Robert W. Kingman,
who graduated from Duke University in 1938, was in the Electrical
Engineering course and helped out with the station.

A 1930 Duke University publication reported that the amateur
radio station W4AHY was operated by the Engineers’ Radio
Association,
which conducted code and theory classes for members.
A 1939 Duke University publication mentions the station and says
that
two 100-foot towers have been erected to support the antenna.

[Mr. Kingman reports that his father went on to work as an
engineer with WKNE in Keene NH, WBZA in Springfield MA, and then
for 30 years with WBZ radio and TV in Boston.]

As far as is known, the earliest broadcast station at Duke
University was the carrier current station WCDC, which began
operation in the fall of 1947. The station operated on 560 kHz
and the
call letters stood for "We cover Duke campus." The station
was started by some classmates from Rocky Mount, North Carolina,
with
the equipment mounted on a desk in the corner of a dorm room.
The WCDC call was also chosen because it was similar to WCEC,
the
hometown station where one of the students had worked. WCEC
stands for "We cover East Carolina."

Stationery for WCDC from that period shows that the station
operated at "560 kc on your dial" and was affiliated with the
Intercollegiate
Broadcasting System. Personnel were:

Student program directors, announcers, engineers and special
commentators and reporters

Prof. J. C. Weatherby, faculty advisor

The letterhead also has: "Carrier current system. Facilities
include mobile or portable 2-way FM radio equipment for remote
programs." The
address given is Box 4580, Duke University, Durham, North
Carolina.

In an email in August 2003, Archie M. Mathis, Jr., wrote:

The original concept of a Duke Campus Radio Station
was
conceived by three roommates in the KA dorm (in the
Clock Tower) in 1947. The transmission system was plugged
into the dorm power line. At Duke, the reception limit was a
maximum of 285 feet from the main power line that
covered both campuses - and all dorms - you could even
pick the station up on a car radio traveling between the
two campuses since the power lines followed the road.
The first call letters were WCDC - "WE COVER DUKE CAMPUS."
The station was started as a money making project for the
three students involved. The students, E. P. (Sonny) Elmore, Jr.
(50), Ed Hillman (49) and Archie M. Mathis, Jr. (51) had been
classmates at Rocky Mount High School in Rocky Mount, N.C. The
initial
equipment was mounted on a desk in the corner of the dorm
room and plugged into the room’s electric socket. When the Duke
Administration (Deans Herring and Cox)
learned of the commercial aspects of the project, it was frowned
upon. However, the Administration encouraged
the students to convert the idea into a school activity.

On May 15, 1950, WDBS began broadcasting as a carrier current
station on 560 kHz,
the same frequency as the earlier WCDC, and with some of the
same personnel as WCDC.
WDBS had its formal opening on the night of October 2, 1950.
The station broadcast from the basement of the Gray Building.

More detailed information on the beginning of WDBS appeared in
an article in the October 1950 Duke Alumni Journal,
which is available below.

The May-June 2012 Duke magazine has a letter from
Robert Cook ’51:

I read with great interest your article regarding
WDBS, the first campus radio station [Retrospective,
March-April 2012]. I was the first station manager of WDBS when
the station went on the air in 1950. The three
men named in the article actually convinced the administration
to approve the station, but after
funding was found, as manager, I had to schedule programming,
write scripts,
train people, and find talent. We all worked very hard; I spent
many nights and days at the
station, and even sold time to local merchants and national
sponsors. We even carried The Perry
Como Show, sponsored by Chesterfield. I’m the one in the
center of the
picture
with script in hand. I’m delighted that the station progressed
so nicely over the later years.

On a Duke alumni web page Stu Greenwald ('53) wrote:
"While at Duke I worked at WDBS doing the play by play of all
the baseball, football and basketball games."

In 1963, WDBS moved to the Bivins Building on East Campus.

In 1965, after going off the air for the first semester while
new
transmitters were installed, WDBS increased its schedule to 24
hours
per day.

In the 1968-69 school year, WDBS operated on 560 kHz. The
five-minute newscasts of the American Contemporary Radio Network
(part of ABC radio) were broadcast at 55 minutes past each hour,
except during periods when the station was unmanned and relied
on the
automated record player (known as "Otto").

At the start of the 1969-70 school year, the frequency was
changed
to 1600 kHz because it was felt that there would be less
electrical
interference in the upper part of the AM band. The station
carried
newscasts of the Metromedia Radio Network.

In December 1970 an application was filed with the FCC for the
sale of
WSRC-FM to WDBS Inc. for $60,000.
In 1971, WDBS Inc., a non-profit corporation, purchased the
license of an existing 3000-watt FM station in Durham, WSRC-FM,
thus
allowing WDBS to broadcast on 107.1 MHz FM to a much wider
audience.
The May 31, 1971, issue of Broadcasting magazine
reported that WSRC-FM, owned by WDBS Inc., requested the call
letters WDBS(FM).
Broadcasting
continued for a while on the campus-limited 1600 kHz frequency.

In 1972, WDBS moved its FM transmitter to a new site with a
somewhat taller tower.

In 1974 ASDU voted to fund a student-run campus-limited AM
station, which first used the call WDUR but later changed to
WDUK when
a Durham station adopted the WDUR call. [WDUK had been the
original
call letters of the commercial radio station on 1310 in Durham,
which
began broadcasting in April 1946. This station later changed its
call
letters to WTIK.]

Doc Searls wrote on the Linux Journal web site in
November 2002:

I worked in radio back during that industry’s
Jurassic, when disc jockeys still picked the music and
it was okay for everybody to have fun. Even commercial stations
were about as corporate as the corner bar.
My best years were spent at WDBS, a commercial "progressive"
rocker incongruously owned but not operated by Duke
University. Its operators were a bunch of deeply committed and
barely organized folks who, in retrospect, resembled
the free software and open-source cadres of today.
With no profit motive and the lousiest signal on the dial, we
had a hard time selling advertising. So we'd make up ads for
things that didn't exist and run those instead. Many were by a
weird announcer named Doctor Dave. That was
me. My nickname today is a fossil remnant of that old radio
persona.
We ran ads for Bangweasel Stone & Rubber Company, Mumbling
Pines Apartment Village and Wellington Raffelators. In many
cases the actual nature of the business was left unrevealed. "If
you need a pipe cleaned or a zipper laid, we'll do
the job for you... remember you can't take a customer without
taking his money."
One fake ad with a recognizable purpose pushed a record
collection that consisted of "All the world’s most beautiful
music, all at once." The listener was then treated to an
overdubbed blast of countless simultaneous music selections.

[Note: George Graham uses the spelling "Wellington Raphelaytor";
either is correct.]

A photo on this website taken in May 1975 for the WDBS Program
Guide shows Station Manager Kathy Stanford, Program Director
Steve Tulsky,
News Director Celeste Wesson,
salespersons Dave Searls and David Kramer, and deejays
Steve Haughton, Hank Kamradt,
Bruce Babski, Mitch Ratliff,
Eddie Taylor,
Chris Carrol, Cabell Smith, Bob Ballard, and Tom Guild. The
photo was provided by Tom Guild who recalls at least three key
staffers at the time who were
not in the photo: Bob Conroy and engineers Glenn Axelrod and
Glenn Bilane.
Guild writes, "I was part of the 'DBS 'family' from August 1971
until February 1976, while the station was semi-commercial on
107.1, but operating with a student staff at least for the first
few years. I started as an announcer/news guy
while still in high school in Durham and stayed on while at
Duke." At the time of the photo, he writes, "the staff
was semi-professional. In other words, we worked 40 hour weeks,
but were only occasionally paid, and not much at that..."

Stuart Troutman writes, "I was a steady staff member at WDBS
between about 1974 and 1981. I knew Bob Conroy, Tom Guild,
Rob Gringle, Cabell Smith, Steve Tulsky, Bruce Babski, Steve
Haughton,
Nancy Ross, Dave Searls, Ken Ross, Cathy Dunn, Shanga Sadiki,
Celeste Wesson, and a bunch of others whose names I've
forgotten. I had
the unenviable task of migrating the format from its
free-form "rock" staple to the day-classical/night-jazz plan in
another
studio location. Very painful and quite thankless. The
station was vital in its prime. Unique, pivotal, groundbreaking.
...
Those were unique days. Bob Conroy was a mentor, and I'd love to
make
contact with him again. Great guy. I was actually
a student at UNC, studying radio/tv/cinema, and I was among the
original staff at WUNC-FM at Chapel Hill. I brought in
the very first feed of "All Things Considered" there. My long
stint at
WDBS was my chance to do my own music programming, which
was what inspired me. I remember our Sr. Engineer was a guy
named Jim
Davis, who did his own oldies show at an AM
station in Durham (WDNC, I think?). Jim and I used to do regular
transmitter tweaking by telephone (very primitive
technology!). Cabell Smith did the daily classical show on WDBS.
Rob
Gringle was another veteran. Shanga Sadiki did the
Sunday jazz show (which I inherited from him). Celeste Wesson of
course
went on to news fame with NPR in South California. I distinctly
recall a marathon broadcast that I was forced into, when the
Triangle
was plunged into a snowstorm paralysis one winter - I think I
was
on the air for damn near 24 hours straight. Shanga finally
showed up to
relieve me by managing to hike to the studio, 'cause road
travel was impossible. I was delirious, babbling on about school
closings over &
over. I fell asleep on a studio sofa. I remember very well that
old
2-story brick building on the corner of the old East
Campus of Duke’s "women’s college". (I had a girlfriend in
a nearby dorm.)"

My involvement with WDBS came late in the game—my
friend David Weaver and I launched a weekend show called Bottom
of the Barrelin
(I think) 1981, an eclectic mix of roots and acoustic music.
Within a
year of our debut, Duke switched to the
classical/jazz format, and most of the staff was pushed out.
We survived the cut for several more months before Duke pulled
the plug
on us as well. It was a depressing time. One legendary story I
vaguely
recall was that someone (Shanga?) barricaded himself in the
transmitter
building off-campus after the switch and ranted about Duke and
WDBS until the cops broke down the door and hauled him off.
Someone
else could provide more details, but it was a golden moment in
radio.

David also hosted the Orange County Special on WXYC, which I
took over from him when he moved to New York in 1982 and ran
for the
next 13 years. I now host Roots Rampage on the
relatively new community station in Carrboro-Chapel Hill, WCOM
(www.communityradio.coop),
which
can be heard online—it carries on the WDBS tradition better
than any other local radio outlet.

Ed Rock Crabtree
recalls that during his first stint at WDBS from July to
November
1982, the station played classical music all day and jazz all
night.

James Lee, a WXDU DJ, writes in a 2003 email that WDBS started
the Back Porch Music program which later moved to WUNC.

On March 11, 1983, WDBS’s valuable commercial FM
license was sold to Classic Ventures, Inc. of Durham. The call
letters
for 107.1 MHz were changed to WFXC(FM). Crabtree recalls that
his second
stint on 107.1, from November 1983 to February 1984, occurred
after the sale of the station, at which time it played easy
listening music. He also writes, "We also moved from Broad
Street
during that time, and for several months, including the horrific
cold snap
of late 1983, transmitted from the transmitter shack on Rose of
Sharon
Road in north Durham."

Meanwhile, WDUK received approval and funding to convert to FM
broadcasting as
WXDU(FM), on the non-commercial frequency of 88.7 MHz. WXDU(FM),
the present
Duke University radio station, went on the air in November 1983,
according to the 1986 Broadcasting Yearbook. According
to the WXDU
page on Wikipedia, the station went on the air in October 1983
with the song “Station to Station” by David Bowie.